Outness

[serene]

There's a conversation about outness on a list I'm on. I'm excising other people's comments (but the gist was that it could hurt people if you were out to them, and besides, maybe people don't *want* to hear about your personal life). I thought I would post my thoughts on this here. Feel free to read, ignore, comment -- whatever.


Note, please, that I'm not saying anyone else should come out -- other people's closets are their own business unless they're asking me to maintain them. People in my life can attest to the fact that that's something I refuse to do, even for those I love.

[snip something to the effect of telling people who want to be out that it could cause harm and that it's not all about them]

If my relationships aren't about me, I don't want them. Sure, they're not *all* about me, but I can't have -- no, make that I am not interested in having -- close relationships with people who don't know me, or are unaware of the people who are most important to me. And I'm not interested in being put in situations in which I'm expected to conceal who I am to the people I love, or who they are to me.

If someone knows me well enough to:

* ask me what I did this weekend
* ask me to coffee
* tell me what they and their partner(s)/family did this weekend
* be a guest in my home
* have me as a guest in their home

then it's very likely they will meet or hear about my partners pretty quickly. I don't walk up to the mail carrier and tell zir "Hey, we've never met, but I'm serene and I'm poly". I often get the impression in these conversations that those of us who are completely out, or who advocate being out, are advocating outing oneself to strangers -- that's never been my position. My position is that I refuse to take more care in concealing who I love than the mono-het person in the next office at work, or the people in my family, or whoever. Why should I? What I'm doing is not wrong or shameful, and I absolutely refuse to behave as though it is.

Comments

[saoba.livejournal.com]

I got my attitude towards being out confirmed the hard way... I ignored my feelings so as not to put someone else in the position of having to have The Talk with their family. The catch is, we were in a relationship and lived together for years, and zie worked with the family business. Their contact/involvment was constant, and consequently, so was my closet.

Yeah, I put myself in a closet for love. By the time the relationship was over I swore I was never going to be any one's dirty little secret again, not even my own.

I'm out to my grown children and their spouses. I'm out to my inlaws. The support and acceptance is terrifically healing, you know?

And while being out isn't always easy, being in the closet nearly killed me.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

You are my role model, you know that, don't you?

[therealjae.livejournal.com]

*nodding* Just so.

-J

[nex0s.livejournal.com]

me too. -- well, there are some outer family members i'm not out to yet, but a lot of them dont know very many detials of my life anyway.

however, i'm out at school and pretty much if a conversation turns to r'ships or whatever, it all comes out if you know what i mean.

i definitely think that other people in my program would have been more accepting of me had i been in the closet, but i probably would have been unhappier than i am now. and i'm OK now. i'd like it to all be a bit more friendly and relaxed, then again, i can't tell how weird they are because of other stuff too. not to mention how i'm starting to realize what an introvert i am, after all of these years!

n.

[redbird]

I agree. Also, if someone is hurt by knowing that I'm bi, or that I have two sweeties, that's their problem. Seriously: these are not bad things, and if it bothers someone that I don't fit their preconceptions, they can either work to stop being bothered, or go play somewhere else.

I don't need to shout it all to the world (though I do find myself letting things slip out). I have a sweetie who would rather I not put all the details out there in public, for reasons that make sense to me, but zie is comfortable that I've told the people I'm close to; the essential points we agreed on is that both of our partners know and approve.

[bayarts.livejournal.com]

Maintaining privacy is one thing. Concealing a big part of who you are due to societal pressures is another. I agree with you. Why the hell should you have to conceal ANYTHING about yourself unless you want to. What you're doing is perfectly ok with those who are perfectly ok. Everyone else can stick their hang ups where the sun don't shine, mama.

[jenhowell.livejournal.com]

Thank you for that.

I've been trying to figure out if/when/how to come out to my family as poly, and this was very encouraging to me.

I've been waiting to feel that my relationship with Lee, my new boyfriend, is "solid" enough to bother telling everyone in my family about my new way of life, but it's definitely solid enough to me. It's solid enough that if it was considered "normal" to be married and seeing someone else, I'd have told everyone in my family already.

I'm still not sure what to do about my boss, however. I'm a nanny, and one of the mom's is almost like a friend to me. Very generous and friendly and we do share quite a bit with each other. But being my employer, I'm worried about telling her and somehow souring our work relationship.

Thanks for posting that, though. You continue to inspire me with your openness.

Love,
Jennifer

[jenhowell.livejournal.com]

p.s. -

Do you mind if I link this in my journal?

Re: Outness

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

I often get the impression in these conversations that those of us who are completely out, or who advocate being out, are advocating outing oneself to strangers -- that's never been my position.

not mine either. though if the subject came up through some weird circumstance, i'd come out to a total stranger too. i don't think about it anymore, see? i don't wonder "should i say this". i just say it because my relationship web is an integral part of my life.

which means also that it's not a big coming-out deal. i just said on IRC to a bunch of people i've barely known two weeks "just a sec -- one of my partners is on the phone". it came out like that, because i just don't hide my relationships.

maintaining a closet would be way too much work for me, if i philosophically supported the idea. i don't, but i can conceive of situations where i might want to be more circumspect for somebody else's sake, such as it being actively dangerous for zir if people knew. but wow, that would be HARD. i would have to shut down a whole series of things, and i can really only see that if i lived in a totalitarian country.

I agree, I just wish

[deedeebythebay.livejournal.com]

I don't know, I just wish I had the courage. Maybe I need to take the time to check the law and make sure what kind of hell I'd be walking into. With extremely conservative foster parents, inlaws and grandmother, we've been too afraid they'd come after the girls on the grounds of immoral behavior damaging to the girls. C'mon, their right wing conservatives and I'm a bi poly christo-pagan and he's a bi poly agnostic. How much worse could we get?

If it weren't for the girls I'd say screw it and be out. Although sometimes for the very sake of the girls, I'd like to say screw it and be out. The older two, at the ages of 8 and 9, already see the ridiculousness and view their grandparents with sadness that they can't talk openly about what they believe. But even they say, having lived with them for the last two summers, voicing their beliefs would horrify their grandparents.

It's a tough place to be in.

Re: I agree, I just wish

[nex0s.livejournal.com]

i think that if i were in your position, if i had kids and very conservative family, i would also be more hesitant about coming out.

but i'm single and no kids. and a very libreral family -- who still has trouble being accepting, but i know they'd never try to take my kids away -- if i had any.

n.

Re: I agree, I just wish

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

I really think that having kids puts one in a hard position, that's true. I don't have kids any more, so I hesitate to put forward a position on it, for fear of sounding like I'm making pronouncements about what other people should do. Not that I don't have opinions or experiences regarding the matter, of course. ;-)

[firecat]

maybe people don't *want* to hear about your personal life

Any time I'm not out to someone, it's because of something similar to this - in some ways I'm kind of a private person (at least to people I mostly know in meatspace), and I don't tend to discuss the details of my relationships with co-workers or acquaintances. The way I tend to answer "what I did this weekend" when acquaintances ask isn't likely to reveal anything about my being poly or queer, although it might make folks suspect. The same goes for coffee and events that other people host - if the relationship isn't close or is mostly work related, what I say isn't necessarily going to reveal that stuff, although I'm not going out of my way to conceal it, either.

If they come to my house, then my queer and poly stuff is more likely to be obvious because of various things I have around the house. But it's still different from verbally volunteering "I'm queer and poly."

However, when I think about what I prefer from other people - it's not a huge preference, but I find it nice to know people who are explicitly out, because then I don't have to guess, I can just admire. :-) So I guess my behavior isn't lining up with my preferences for what other people do. I'll have to think about whether I want to make any effort to change that.

[jilesa.livejournal.com]

Exactly so. I'm not big on volunteering personal information to people I don't know well, but if someone knows me well enough to converse about my life outside of work (or whatever context in which we interact), then they're going to know that I'm poly, and bi, because those things are part of who I am.

(The possible exception to this is my parents, with whom I have a very strained and distant relationship anyway. Even there, if they asked direct questions, they'd get honest answers.)

I've told my neices

[dakiwiboid.livejournal.com]

and tomorrow, I'm going to try to tell my sane sister. I am praying that it goes well. I hope that she can accept that I'm living with my two loves. I think that she'd love moosl if she met him, and I feel wrong about not telling her.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

I had a conversation with someone who said, "we don't want to make a big deal about [the poly secondary relationship], we don't want to make a big announcement".

My response was, "you'd announce that you'd adopted a new puppy, but you won't tell your friends that you have a new love. you'd announce that you had a new love if you were single. So, what message is that sending?"

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

Exactly. May I quote you?

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Yes, but if you're going to quote the text, it should probably be cleaned up a bit for typos.

[kiya]

You know, I'm beginning to reach a point of "The great thing about banging your head against a wall is how good it feels when you stop" about the mailing list.